Testimony of Deich Daff
I Was Abducted and Raped, Yet I Remain Steadfast in My Struggle for the Sahrawi People’s Right to Self-Determination
Deich Daff is a Sahrawi human rights defender who defends the rights of Sahrawi people for self-determination. He is the Vice-President of CODESA and a former prisoner along with other human rights defenders of the Gdeim Izik group. On 2 December 2010, he was arrested and abducted from his home by paramilitary forces in plain clothes. Deich Daff spent seven years in prison, undergoing various forms of torture because of his participation in the coordination of the peaceful sit-in at Gdeim Izik, where he was one of the sit-in participants responsible for the dialogue with the Moroccan authorities.
On 19 July 2017, Deich Daff was released from prison. Despite the violence and intimidation he suffered, the human rights defender continues to denounce the appalling conditions which Sahrawi political prisoners have been submitted to and the violence he suffered as a member of the Gdeim Izik group.
The human rights defender also continues to call for the immediate release of Sahrawi political prisoners and human rights defenders who have been unfairly held in Moroccan prisons despite UNWGAD reports proving the arbitrary nature of their detention.
The issue of the status of Western Sahara remains unresolved, despite ongoing negotiations between the Moroccan authorities and the Polisario Front. The UN Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara (MINURSO), established in 1991, has been extended but continues to have no human rights monitoring component. The dispute over self determination created deep political and security related tensions throughout the Sahara area and affects all aspects of life, including the work of human rights defenders.
Sahrawi human rights defenders continued to be subjected to intimidation, harassment, questioning, arrest, incommunicado detention, and unfair trials.
